The Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans documents a
fascinating and colorful history, one which has its beginnings
three-quarters of a century before the diocese was established, and
which includes colonial periods under the French and Spanish. This
article will touch briefly on the early history of the archdiocese,
provide an overview of the Archives, and discuss more in depth the
sacramental records and their significance for researching Catholic
heritage, culture, and ethnic diversity.

The mission of the Office of Archives and Records at the
Archdiocese of New Orleans is to document and care for the
historical records, publications, manuscript collections, and
related materials documenting the Catholic experience in Louisiana.
Records date from 1718 to the present. There is an active records
management program that applies disposition to the business records
of the organization. Prior to the Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
records were stored in three facilities, all of which suffered
major damage during and after the hurricane. Since returning to New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the Archdiocesan Archives has
proactively begun the implementation of an enterprise-wide document
management program to insure the records of the organization and to
safeguard 300 years of archival material currently in its care.

Erected in 1793, and originally known as the Diocese of
Louisiana and the Floridas, the Archdiocese of New Orleans was a
joint creation of the king of Spain and the pope. Having roots in
the Catholic realms of Spain and France, the Archdiocese has a
distinctive history unlike the dioceses established in the English
and Protestant traditions of the Eastern seaboard. After the
Louisiana Purchase of 1803, New Orleans became an "American"
diocese but the traditions and practices took more than a century
to change.

The early history of the Louisiana Catholic Church cannot be
separated from the early colonial period of Louisiana. As part of
the colonial empires of France and Spain, the settlers of Louisiana
were to be Catholic if they were to be faithful subjects. Even the
Code Noir, the French law that governed the treatment of slaves,
mandated that slaves be instructed and baptized in the Catholic
faith, freed from work on Sunday, and treated humanely. As my
predecessor, Dr. Charles Nolan, stated "the early residents of this
area would have found our distinction between political and
religious matters strange and unintelligible. War, a business or
marriage contract, and a baptismal ceremony were both sacred and
secular."

The diocese originally encompassed the entire Louisiana
Territory from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, as well
as the Florida peninsula and the Gulf Coast. Today there are
fifty-seven dioceses in the territory that was once the Diocese of
the Louisiana and the Floridas. The Archdiocese of New Orleans is
but a fraction of that territory, encompassing 4,208 square miles,
eight civil parishes (counties), 108 church parishes, ten missions
or quasi-parishes and two campus ministries, fifty-six elementary
schools, ten high schools, numerous health care centers, homes for
the aged and the handicapped, as well as the organizations directed
by Catholic Charities.

For more than 220 years, from Bishop Penalver y Cardenas, the
first bishop of the diocese, to Archbishop Gregory Aymond, the
fourteenth archbishop, a multi-ethnic population of faithful,
clergy, and religious, have preserved and nurtured the faith by
establishing parishes, schools, orphanages, hospitals, and other
necessary institutions. The faithful have rebuilt communities and
churches after floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, wars, and
epidemics. This faithful population consisted of French, Spanish,
Irish, Germans, Acadians, Canary Islanders, Native Americans,
Slaves, Free People of Color, Italians, Hungarians, Cubans,
Vietnamese, and of course Americans.

The Archives

Within the Archives there are approximately 6,000 cubic feet of
boxed archival material (e.g. administrative files, property files,
organizational files, parish visitation reports, institutional
histories, photograph collections), 528 bound volumes of primary
source material (e.g. funeral expenses, pulpit announcements,
diaries, scrapbooks, minute books, cemetery plot books), and 1,456
sacramental registers. Secondary sources numbering more than 3,500
include the Official Catholic Directory (and its predecessors), the
archdiocesan newspapers, parish histories, and records of the
Propagation of the Faith. Collections that have been described at a
collection level up to 1965 are available for scholarly...

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